How Trump shrank the federal government and made it more inefficient
Even after Elon Musk’s bureaucracy-shrinking initiative upended agencies across the government, an analysis by The New York Times found it misstated its claims of large savings and failed to reduce federal spending.
And many current and former officials and people who routinely interact with the federal government say that it is far less efficient and less dependable in the services it provides to the American public.
Take the Agriculture Department, which lost 20,000 workers, nearly one-fifth of its staff.
Many farmers have found they cannot get critical information about the grants and conservation projects they had incorporated into their business plans, said Wes Gillingham, a farmer in upstate New York and the president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. Just getting routine support from the agency is difficult because often there is no one in the regional office to answer the phone, he added.
“We’re just going to see a huge amount of farms going out of business this year because of the mayhem,” he said.
Among the other changes: The government’s most comprehensive system for tracking food-borne illnesses has been scaled back. It has canceled programs to deter young people from using tobacco, the leading cause of cancer. It curtailed research into cancer, as well as Alzheimer’s disease and workplace safety.
As of September, the government no longer issues reports about nationwide food insecurity, even as the problem is currently on the rise. The federal housing agency is doing less work enforcing fair housing laws. And in one of the biggest moves, the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, cutting off foreign aid around the globe.
“It’s a disaster,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes an effective federal work force. “It’s the single largest loss of capacity to keep us safe and to promote the public good that we’ve had in our history, by far and away, and it is for no purpose.” [Continue reading…]